My new Korean friend

Well today could have gone better. I had that inevitable dread that today was not going to be the greatest so it started off with a bit of weight (on top of the horrendous sinus I’m doing my best to ignore)

To take a step back; I teach at 4 different schools, 3 of them outside of Seongju and getting to them is not just simply asking for the bus to that location. I had received some advice on which bus stop to take today and my co-teacher was going to meet me nearby. Simple enough. But the bus stop I had been told was not the bus stop I needed to take and to make matters worse it actually shares the name of the one I was meant to take, so nobody is really at fault here…

This hindsight does not, though, take away from the terrifying moments when the meeting time comes and goes, I am freezing my extremities off and nothing even looks vaguely familiar to the google maps that I downloaded and saved onto my all but useless phone. So I go to a shop, show the name of the school and hope for the best. I have never wanted to be fluent in Korean more than at that moment. Not a clue what was said. Lots of pointing but nothing specific. So I start walking. Still can’t find the road that I need. Stop at another shop. Ask again. Repeat desires to speak Korean. Walk further. Stop. Repeat. This time get pointed back the way I came.

By now the school starting time has long passed, I can’t feel my face or my feet; which is good because I’ve been walking for a while now.

Eventually a car pulls over and I recognise a man who had been in one of the many shops I had stopped in as he winds down his window. He asks where I need to get to so I show him the name of the school and he puts it into his gps. After studying it for a few moments he says hop in and drives me to school (I must add that I was kind of heading in the right direction until I had been told to turn around). He asked if we were friends and I said yes. This is how I have made my first random stranger friend in Korea!

The day improved somewhat from there but I would give anything to crawl up into bed right now with a hot cup of tea.

On a side note, I cannot wait until my ARC comes through so I can get some sort of connection outside of school internet, you don’t know how dependent you are on apps until you don’t have them…